On Living Well
by A Dozen Lemmings
Summary: Despite it all... Despite them all... Taylor Hebert achieved the best revenge.


She once wondered what she would ever do that could match the importance of what she's already done.  
She's come to realize that it doesn't matter.  
She's Taylor Hebert, once upon a time she set a goal, and then she fulfilled it.  
She had done the impossible.  
Humanity had won.

His name is Dennis Miller. She laughs and laughs and laughs when she hears his first name.

She's twenty two years old, walking down the road by a little league baseball field the first time she sees him, funny part is, He's not really her 'type'. Well muscled for sure but whipcord thin.

"Your hair." She tells him later. "I saw your hair first."

It's Very, Very Red.

"Like, a sunset!" she announces quite seriously when she's had a little to much champagne on their third date.  
"Like a lawn gnome's boxers!" He mocks himself, lips quirked faintly.  
"Nuh-uh S'pretty not ga-ger-gyre- Not Loud!"

They date for nearly a year before they realise they have become, well, a They.

He doesn't smile that often, but he laughs easily. Like he's positively delighted to find joy in something, anything, everything.

Taylor's missing an arm at the elbow. Dennis has a smattering of Pock marks crossing his torso one hip to the opposite shoulder.  
He assumes she's a Combat Vet. They're married almost a year before she allows herself to tell him most of just what kind.  
Not Khepri though, Khepri dies with her.

In many other ways though, they're alike. Both awkward, shy, a little broken.

She's twenty three the first time they make love. She can't even grimace at that particular turn of phrase the next day when it creeps into her mind.  
There's a part of her, a little, tiny, part of her. That bullying, villainy, regret and an apocalypse were never able to break.  
That little, tiny, giddy and growing part of her. Giggles like she used to when she stole some of her mothers 'especially trashy novels'.

She's lost an arm, her body is a patchwork of scars, and Dennis makes her feel beautiful.

She's Twenty Four when she realizes she is.  
She is absolutely utterly Satiated. Sweaty an absolute mess and glorious. Dennis is lightly tracing a nipple and she's shivering every few seconds with aftershock.  
"If you don't stop that. Spent or not, I will fuck you into a Heart attack so help me God." Her voice is all wood smoke and promise.  
She happens to looks at him then, Watches his eyes go wide. Grin settling in.  
Her own smile is demure.

She's Twenty Five, eating dinner with a her Dad. Dennis is with them, standing in the door of the living room. Waving a meatball around with his fork. miming some play her Dad missed in the football game they're watching.  
"No!" "Oh yes!" they're both howling. "Momma! Momma! Momma!" She has a son, Jonathan Alexander Hebert, named for her new husband's father. She Coos at him.  
Dennis settles his chin on her shoulder wrapping her in a hug from behind. She rests her hand over his, There are rings where there weren't before. They feel right.

Taylor rarely laughs. She smiles though. More and more as old wounds heal. In the early days it was a brittle thing, but its gentled with time. Dennis Likes to say  
"It's become as Beautiful as the rest of you."

She works as a liaison between a number of independent Hero and Rogue groups and the United States Government of Earth Yu, Her eventual goal an organization much like the Protectorate/PRT.

She may no longer control bugs but some shred of the girl she was remains. Even one handed her ability to multitask is utterly, hilariously, ridiculous. "It's handy." She tells her Dad. He Groans. She smiles.

Time passes, Taylor Annette Hebert is Twenty Nine when Lisa Annette Hebert is brought sniffling into the world. She's a quiet baby, not that fussy.  
If She's being honest, Taylor never wanted to name their kids after the people she left behind. But... Lisa came into the world wearing a look like she knew something you didn't, and couldn't possibly wait to share. Not to mention the freckles that dust her nose just so. In that moment, the recognition just won't let her go.

She once wondered where she could possibly go from where she was.  
She's come to realize that it doesn't matter.  
She's Here now. Her Father and Husband around her.  
Her children burrowed in with her on a narrow hospital bed.  
There are others she wishes could be here.  
But she wouldn't want to be anywhere else.


End file.
